‘Fifty Strands of Braids’ – New collection by Hermiz Daniel

When I started on this collection, I knew it was going to be a bit of a ‘dark’ one. But I never knew it was going to end up on the leather and bondage side of things. Then I fell in love with the movie “Fifty Shades of Grey” and watched it about 10 times in one week! But I need to make it clear it was the love story I liked the most… ha ha. When we started shooting I knew we had it right – everything looked quite moody and sexual! The first model we shot, with charms in her hair – it made me think of bondage and S&M sex! Just like people who are into that ‘kinda’ sex, they use objects and tools to satisfy themselves and their personal needs. I’ve tried to translate that feeling into hair!

To achieve this, some hairstyles feature accessories made from ‘fetish’ materials – or have a thematic relationship to this darker, almost sinful world. From using pins to extra hair extensions to braiding it to make the hair whip-like, or putting rings on the braids – the tricky part was to try to keep it contemporary and reflective of hair fashion.

One hairstyle that made me sure it was quite ‘bondage’ is the braided one with frilled ends. To get that shot I was throwing the hair from the back towards the front, and the model was wearing leather! The sounds of the braids against her leather jacket sounded like I was flogging her! This is actually how the name of the collection came about. When we were shooting this model, everyone in the team started to giggle a bit because of the noise the hair was making. I straight away mentioned the Fifty Shades of Grey movie and how much I love it. One of our team said in a laughing way “FIFTY STRANDS OF BRAIDS”, and I said “YES! That’s what I’m going to name the collection!” Everyone thought I was being silly and crazy but here we are.

The makeup was kept supernatural; it was all about the skin and the natural glow of the face. We wanted the skin to look a bit raw but healthy.
Styling was pretty straight forward: sheer leotards, slips, corsets and fishnets to expose-but-not-expose the skin (if you know what I mean) and moody set up that Andrew had made! We combined that with leather clothing and accessories to enhance the bondage side of this shoot.

Photography was, as always, in Andrew O’Toole’s great hands. The colourful lighting was his idea and I believe it added a beautiful touch of drama to the shoot.


Credits for collection:
Hair: Hermiz Daniel; Salon: Joey Scandizzo Salon, Melbourne, Australia
Photography: Andrew O’Toole; Styling: Elaine Marshall; Make-Up: Karen Burton